Chapter 20: Iron Heart

20IRON HEART

By thy leave I can look, I rise again;

But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,

That not one hour I can myself sustain;

Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,

And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

—John Donne, “Thou Hast Made Me, and Shall Thy Work Decay?”

Cordelia was looking for Matthew.

Every once in a while, she would reach up and touch the necklace around her throat. Now that she knew its secret, it felt different, as if the metal were hot against her skin, though she knew that was ridiculous—the necklace had not changed. Only her knowledge of it had.

She kept seeing James, standing over her, his dark gold eyes fixed on hers. The feeling when he opened the necklace, his fingers brushing her throat. That breathless, shivery feeling that sent goose bumps flooding across her skin.

So you loved me and you loved Grace at the same time,she had said to James, thinking he would take hold of that, nod gratefully at her understanding. But the look that had flashed across his face—bitter despair, self-loathing.

I never loved her. Never.

It made no sense, not when matched with his behavior, and yet she felt as if her reality had tilted on its axis. James did love her; he had loved her. Whether that was enough, she did not know; but she knew the depth of her own reaction, reading the words he had written inside her necklace. She had felt as if her heart were pumping light, not blood, through her veins.

Her stomach churned now: confusion, mixed with a hope she had not dared to feel before. If someone—if Lucie—had asked her that moment what she felt, she would have said, I don’t know, I don’t know, but she knew enough: her own feelings were too strong to be ignored any longer. There were things that could go no further, before real damage was done.

She found Matthew at last on the dance floor, being flung about energetically by Eugenia. She hung back among the crowd waiting for the next dance and saw Eugenia look over at her and smile sadly. To Cordelia, the smile said, Please don’t hurt him, though perhaps it was her own imagination. Her own dread.

When the song was over, Eugenia tapped Matthew on the shoulder and pointed to Cordelia; his face lit up, and he walked off the dance floor to join her, rubbing his shoulder. He had grown thinner, she thought with a pang, and that, combined with the bright coat and the enamel leaves in his hair, made him look like a faerie prince.

“Are you rescuing me from Eugenia?” he said. “She’s a good girl, but she does toss one around like a rag doll. I swear I saw through the wards of London to a new and terrible world.”

Cordelia smiled; he sounded all right, at least. “Can we talk?” she said. “Perhaps in the games room?”

Something lit in his eyes: guarded hope. “Of course.”

The games room had been readied: it was a tradition, as a party came to a close, for some of the guests—mostly the men—to retire here for port and cigars. The room smelled of cedar and pine, the walls hung with red-berried holly wreaths. Upon the sideboard had been set bottles of sherry, brandy, and all manner of whiskies. The windows were silvered with ice, and a high fire burning in the grate illuminated the framed portraits on the walls.

It was cozy, and still Cordelia wanted to shiver. Everything in her wanted to avoid hurting him now, tonight. The rest of her knew this wasn’t going to get easier, and the longer she waited, the worse it would be.

“Thank you for sending the Thieves to look after me the other night,” Matthew said. “It was a true act of kindness. And—” He looked at her closely. “I am getting better, Daisy. Christopher has me on this regimen, a bit less every day, and soon enough he says my body will no longer depend on the stuff. I will be able to stop.”

Cordelia swallowed. In all that speech, she thought, he had not once said the words “alcohol” or “drink.” She wanted to say: It will be good when your body no longer wants the stuff, but you will still want it. Every time you are unhappy, you will want to blunt that pain with alcohol; every time you are bored, or feel empty, you will want to fill that hollow, and that will be the hard part, so much harder than you think.

“I remember this dress,” Matthew said, touching her sleeve lightly. There was a little unease in his voice, as if he wondered at her silence. “You worried it was so plain that it wouldn’t suit you, but it does,” he said. “With your hair, you look like a dark flame, edged in fire.”

“You talked me into it,” Cordelia said. She let herself remember the gilded shop, the streets of Paris, the elegant rooftops rising and falling like musical notes. “And I am glad you did. You have Anna’s skill; you see the beauty in potential.”

Matthew closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were fixed on her; she could see every detail in his irises, the bits of gold mixed among the green.

“Do you think of Paris, as I do?” His voice was a little rough. “Even now, when I open my eyes in the morning, I briefly imagine a whole day lies ahead of adventures in Paris with you. There is so much we did not get a chance to do. And after Paris, we could have gone to Venice. It is a palace of water and shadow. There are masked balls—”

She laid her hands against his chest. She could feel his sharp intake of breath. And, this close to him, she could smell his cologne, clean as ocean water, unmixed for once with brandy or wine. “We cannot always be traveling, Matthew,” she said. “We cannot always be running away.”

In answer, he kissed her. And for a moment she let herself be lost in the kiss, in the tender gentleness of it. There was nothing of the fire that there had been the first time, born out of desperation and yearning and incoherent need. There was Matthew in the kiss, who she loved: his bright cutting mind, his vulnerability, his beauty and fragility. There was love, but not passion.

Raziel, let her not hurt him. Not badly. She stood with her hands against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, his lips brushing hers with the softest pressure, until he drew away, looking at her with confusion in his eyes.

So he had felt it too, the difference.

“Cordelia? Is something wrong?”

“Matthew,” she said. “Oh, my dear Matthew. We must stop.”

He went rigid under her hands, his graceful body suddenly stiff as wood. “Stop what? Stop traveling? I understand,” he added, more calmly. “I did not mean we abandon the fight here in London. We must stay, defend our friends and our city, separate you from Lilith—”

“And then what? What if it were all dealt with? Then what happens?”

In a halting voice, he said, “I know I seem—awful now. But Christopher says I will be well in a fortnight. This will be behind me, I can move forward—”

“Stopping the physical craving isn’t enough,” said Cordelia. “You will still want to drink.”

He flinched. “No. I hate it. I hate what it makes me. You know,” he added, “the reason I started in the first place. You can help me, Daisy. You can go with me to tell my parents what I did. I know it won’t fix everything, but it is the wound at the heart of all that has happened since.”

He was almost breathless; she could feel his heart racing. After a moment, almost impatiently, he said, “What’s wrong? Please, say something.”

There was a brittleness to the question that terrified Cordelia. She had to comfort him, she thought. She had to let him know she would never abandon him. “I will go with you to speak to your parents, Matthew,” she said. “Whatever happens, I will be there every time you feel guilty, to remind you that you are a good person who is worthy of forgiveness and love.”

“Then—” His eyes searched her face. “If you will always be with me—”

“When I married James, it was only supposed to be for a year. It was all I thought I could have,” Cordelia said. “Everyone thought I was being selfless, but I was not. I told myself if I could just have a year with James, just a year, it would be something I could hold on to for the rest of my life, and treasure, that time with the boy I had loved since I was fourteen years old—”

“Daisy.”She could see the words had hurt him, wished she had not had to say them. But he had to see, to understand. “You should never—you are worth more than that. Deserve more than that.”

“And so do you,” Cordelia said in a whisper. “Matthew, what I feel for James hasn’t changed. It has nothing to do with you. You ought to be adored above all things, for you are wonderful. You ought to have someone’s whole heart. But I do not have a whole heart to give you.”

“Because you still love James,” Matthew said flatly.

“I always have loved him,” Cordelia said, with the ghost of a smile. “I always will. It is not a choice; it is part of me, like my heart or my soul or… or Cortana.”

“I can wait for you to change your mind.” Matthew sounded as if he were drowning.

“No,” Cordelia said, and felt as if she were breaking something, some fragile, delicate thing made of ice or glass. “I cannot and never will love you in the way you wish to be loved, Math. The way you deserve to be loved. I do not know what I will do about James. I have no plan, have made no decision. But I do know this. I know I must not”—and there were tears in her eyes—“let there be false hope between us.”

Matthew raised his chin. There was a terrible look in his eyes, the sort of look her father had when he had lost a great deal at the gambling table. “Am I so hard to love?”

“No,”Cordelia said, in despair. “You are so easy to love. So easy that it has caused all this trouble.”

“But you don’t love me.” There was real bitterness in his voice now. “I understand, you’ve made it clear enough; I’m a drunk and always will be—”

“That is not true, and not what this is about,” Cordelia said. “My decision has nothing to do with your drinking, nothing at all—”

But he was already backing away from her, shaking his blond head. Scattering green-gold leaves. “This is unbearable,” he said. “I can stand it no longer.”

And with a few strides, he was gone through the door, leaving Cordelia alone, her heart hammering in her chest as if she had just run a hundred miles.

---

Thomas had expected that the moment they arrived at the party, Alastair would peel away to join his usual cohort: Piers Wentworth, Augustus Pounceby, and the other boys who had graduated with him from Shadowhunter Academy.

To his surprise, Alastair stayed by his side. He did not devote his entire attention to Thomas—they stopped repeatedly to greet everyone from James to Eugenia, who looked from Thomas to Alastair and grinned maniacally, to Esme Hardcastle, who had a long list of questions for Alastair about his Persian relatives. “My family tree must be thorough,” she said. “Now, is it true that your mother was married to a French Shadowhunter?”

“No,” Alastair said. “My father was her first and only husband.”

“So she didn’t poison the Frenchman for his money?”

Alastair glowered.

“Did she murder him for a different reason?” Esme inquired, pen hovering.

“He asked too many questions,” said Alastair darkly, after which he was dragged away by Thomas, who, to his own surprise, was able to convince Alastair to join in playing with his cousin Alex. Alex had always enjoyed being put on top of Thomas’s shoulders, as it afforded an excellent view. It turned out he also liked it when Alastair picked him up and tickled him. When Thomas raised his eyebrows, Alastair said, “I might as well practice, oughtn’t I? I’ll have my own baby brother or sister soon.” Alastair’s dark eyes sparked. “Look at that,” he said, and Thomas turned to see that Anna and Ari were waltzing on the dance floor, arms around each other, seemingly oblivious to the world. A few of the Enclave were staring—the Baybrooks, the Pouncebys, Ida Rosewain, the Inquisitor himself, glaring from the sidelines—but most were simply going about their business. Even Ari’s mother was looking over at them wistfully, with no anger or judgment on her face.

“See,” Thomas said, in a low voice. “The sky has not fallen.”

Alastair set Alex down, and Alex toddled on chubby legs to his mother, pulling at her blue skirts. Alastair indicated that Thomas should come with him, and Thomas, wondering if he had annoyed Alastair and if so, how much, followed him behind a decorative urn that was exploding yew branches covered in red berries. From behind it, Thomas could catch only glimpses of the ballroom.

“Well, all right,” Thomas said, squaring his shoulders. “If you’re angry at me, say so.”

Alastair blinked. “Why would I be angry at you?”

“Perhaps you’re annoyed that I made you come to the party. Perhaps you’d rather be with Charles—”

“Charles is here?” Alastair looked honestly surprised.

“He’s been ignoring you,” Thomas noted. “Very rude of him.”

“I hadn’t noticed. I don’t care about Charles,” said Alastair, and Thomas was surprised at how startlingly relieved he felt. “And I don’t know why you want him to speak to me either. Perhaps you need to figure out what you do want.”

“Alastair, you are the last person—”

“Do you realize we’re under the mistletoe?” Alastair said, his dark eyes sparking with mischief. Thomas glanced up. It was true; someone had hung a bunch of the waxy white berries from a hook in the wall overhead.

Thomas took a step forward. Alastair instinctively retreated a step, his back against the wall. “Would you like me to do something about it?” Thomas said.

The air between them suddenly seemed as heavy as the air outside, weighted with the promise of a storm. Alastair laid a hand on Thomas’s chest. His long lashes swept down to hide his eyes, his expression, but his hand slid down, over Thomas’s flat belly, his thumb rubbing small circles, setting every one of Thomas’s nerves alight. “Right here?” he said, hooking his fingers into Thomas’s waistband. “Right now?”

“I’d kiss you right here,” Thomas said in a harsh whisper. “I’d kiss you in front of the Enclave. I am not ashamed of anything I feel about you. You are the one, I think, who doesn’t want it.”

Alastair tipped his face up, and Thomas could see what his lashes had been hiding: the slow-melting desire in his eyes. “I want it,” he said.

And Thomas was about to lean forward, he was about to crush his lips to Alastair’s, was about to suggest that much as he wanted to claim Alastair as his in front of the whole Enclave, they had to go somewhere, anywhere, where they could be alone, when a scream split the air. The scream of someone in anguished pain.

Alastair jerked bolt upright. Thomas reeled back, his heart slamming in his chest. He knew that scream. It was his aunt Cecily.

---

James paused halfway down the corridor, his heart pounding. He had not meant to follow Cordelia and Matthew to the games room; he’d gone there to retrieve a cheroot Anna had good-naturedly demanded, but as he’d approached the door, he’d heard their voices. Matthew, low and intense; Cordelia, obviously distressed. The pain in her voice kept him nailed in place, even as he knew he should back away. He had started to back away, when he heard Cordelia say, “I cannot and never will love you in the way you wish to be loved, Math. The way you deserve to be loved. I do not know what I will do about James. I have no plan, have made no decision. But I do know this. I know I must not let there be false hope between us.”

He would have thought he would be relieved. But it had felt like a thorn driven into his heart: he felt Matthew’s pain, nearly choked on it. He walked away then, not staying to hear what Matthew said. He could not bear to.

He found himself walking mechanically back into the ballroom. He could barely even perceive the other partygoers, and when his father tried to get his attention, he pretended he didn’t notice. He slipped into one of the alcoves and stared across at the Christmas tree. He could barely breathe. I do not know what I will do about James, she had said. Perhaps they would both lose her, he and Matthew. Perhaps it would be better that way; they could share their pain, repair each other. But a small and treacherous pulse beat inside his chest, repeating over and over that she had not said she was done with him, only that she did not know what she would do. It was enough for hope, a hope that warred with guilt, and a darker feeling that seemed to tighten like a band around his chest, cutting off his breath.

The party whirled on in front of him, a torrent of color and sound, and yet through it, he seemed to see a spill of shadows. Something dark, rising like smoke: a threat he could taste on the air.

This was not sorrow or worry, he realized. This was danger.

And then he heard the scream.

---

Lucie knew she should have taken Jesse aside immediately to tell him what Malcolm had said to her, but she hadn’t had the heart.

He appeared truly to be enjoying himself at this, the first social occasion he had ever attended as a living adult. The admiring glances shot his way nonplussed him, but Lucie glowed with happiness for him. She was proud of the way he held himself, and the real interest he showed in people, and she couldn’t bear to ruin it.

She’d once read in an etiquette book that when one introduced two people, one should add a small detail about one of them that might spark a conversation. So she told Ida Rosewain, “This is Jeremy Blackthorn. He collects antique cow-creamers,” while she informed Piers that Jeremy was an amateur astronomer, and told the Townsends that he had spent fourteen days living in the basket of a hot-air balloon. Jesse quite calmly went along with all the fibs, and even embroidered on them: Lucie had nearly choked when he’d told the Townsends that all his meals in the balloon had been brought to him by trained seagulls.

Eventually, as guests ceased arriving and more people joined the dancing, Lucie squeezed Jesse’s hand (she was wearing gloves, as was he; surely it did not count as touching) and said, “There’s only a few people left you haven’t met. Do you want to brave the Inquisitor and his wife? You’ll have to meet them eventually.”

He looked down at her. “Speaking of inquisitions,” he said, with a slightly self-mocking turn to his mouth, “I note that you have been avoiding telling me what Malcolm said in the Sanctuary.”

“You are too clever for your own good.”

“If you’d rather tell me later, we could dance—”

She bit her lip. “No,” she said quietly. “Come with me. We should talk.”

She glanced around to see if anyone was watching—no one seemed to be—before leading him to the French doors that gave onto the long stone balcony outside the ballroom. She slipped through them, Jesse on her heels, and went to the railing.

The snow had not been cleared, and it chilled her feet through her slippers: it was not expected that anyone would come out here during the coldest time of the year. Beyond the railing was a London gripped by cold, a Thames sluggish with chill water, the constant smell of burning wood and coal. The rooflines of distant houses resembled an Alpine ridge, dusted with snow.

“Can’t we just have one lovely night?” Lucie said, gazing out at the city from the chilly stone balustrade. “Can’t I refuse to tell you what Malcolm said?”

“Lucie,” Jesse said. He had joined her at the railing; the cold had already whipped color into his pale cheeks. She knew he liked it, liked the extremes of heat and cold, but he did not seem to be enjoying it now. “Whatever it is, you must tell me. I am not used to having a mortal heart, one that beats; it is out of practice. It cannot sustain this kind of panic.”

“I did not mean to make you panic,” Lucie murmured. “Only—Jesse—I cannot touch you. And you cannot touch me.”

She quickly summarized what Malcolm had told her. When she was done, Jesse rested a hand on the cold stone of the railing and said, “For so long, as a ghost, you were the only one I could touch. And now I am alive, and you are the only one I cannot.” He looked up at the stars in the clear sky above them. “It hardly seems worth the return.”

“Don’t say that,” Lucie breathed. “There is so much to being alive, and you are wonderful at it, and Malcolm will find a solution. Or we will. We have found solutions to worse problems.”

He almost smiled. “Wonderful at being alive? That is a compliment.” He raised a hand as if to touch her cheek—then drew it back, eyes darkening. “I don’t like to think that raising me made you more vulnerable to Belial.”

“I raised you,” Lucie said. “I did not ask you. I commanded you. The responsibility lies with me.”

But she could tell that had not comforted him; his gaze had turned inward, dark. The gaze of the boy who withdrew easily into himself, because for so long he had not been seen, not been heard. “Jesse,” she said. “The shadow of Belial has always hung over myself and my brother. You did not bring that upon us. It has become clearer and clearer over the past year that it was always his plan to turn his attention to us—that whatever his goal is, his blood descendants are a part of it.”

“So what you are saying is that the only thing to be done is to end Belial. Even though they say he can’t be killed.”

“But they also say that Cortana can kill him.” She thought, with a piercing loneliness, of Cordelia. “We have to believe it is true.”

He looked down at her. He looked like Christmas and winter: dark green eyes, snow-white skin, hair as black as coal. “Then what do we do?”

“We think about it tomorrow,” Lucie said softly, “but not tonight. Tonight is a Christmas party, and you are alive, and I am going to dance with you in the only way we can.” She held out her hands. “Here. Let me show you.”

She stepped in closer to him. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, though they were not touching; she raised her hand, and he raised his so that they stood with their palms facing each other, separated by an inch of cold winter air. He curved his other arm around her waist, careful not to make contact, not to even brush her skin.

She turned her face up to his. She could have raised herself up on her toes and kissed his mouth. Instead she caught his gaze with her own. Their eyes held each other’s, as their bodies could not, and together they began to dance. There on the balcony, under the stars, with the rooftops of London the only witnesses. And though Lucie could not touch him, Jesse’s presence warmed her, surrounded her, calmed her. She felt a pressure in her throat: Why had no one ever told her how close happiness was to tears?

And then there was a crash, a sound like a chandelier falling to burst apart in fragments upon the floor. And from inside the ballroom, a scream.

---

Cordelia’s hands were wet with tears.

She had lingered in the games room as long as she could after Matthew left. She had been aware she was crying—making hardly any noise at all, but the hot tears kept coming, spilling down her cheeks, spotting the silk of her dress.

Hurting Matthew had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. She wished she had been able to make him understand that she did not regret their time in Paris, that much of what had happened was good, even wonderful. That Matthew had taught her that there was life for her even if she were not a Shadowhunter. That even in the darkest moments, humor and light could shine through.

Part of her wanted to run after him and take it all back, but then they would only be exactly where they were before. She had told him the truth. She had been honest when she’d said she didn’t know what she would do about James.

But the necklace. The necklace had changed things. She touched it now, with damp fingers. Realized there were no longer hot drops of salt water splashing onto her collarbone. There was only so long she could hide in here; Anna and Ari would come looking for her, as would Alastair. With a quick glance in the mirror over the fireplace, she tucked her hair into place and returned to the ballroom.

She scanned the room quickly—if she had been worried that anyone would have noticed her disappearance with Matthew, it seemed not—before realizing who she was looking for. Lucie. Who she did not see anywhere, or Jesse, but even if Lucie had been there, Cordelia could not simply have gone to her for comfort. Things were too complicated for that.

The party was a torrent of color and brightness and warmth, and then the sound of breaking glass tore through it all.

She remembered the loud crash at her wedding when her father had crumpled drunkenly to the floor, knocking over plates and dishes as he fell, and thought, Someone has broken something.

And then came the scream. An awful, heartrending scream. A flash of movements. The crash of instruments as the musicians fled their small stage; the twang of a violin string breaking. A scramble as Shadowhunters retreated from the dance floor, some reaching for weapons, though most would have come unarmed.

The blade of a sharp, familiar voice, cutting through the noise and motion like a knife.

“STOP,”Tatiana Blackthorn cried. She stood atop the stage, wearing a faded, bloodstained dress, her hair wild, a bundle cradled against her chest. Her voice carried as if supernaturally amplified. “You will stop this instant—stop moving, stop speaking, and drop every weapon—or the child dies.”

By the Angel.The bundle was a child. The scream had been Cecily Lightwood’s. Gripped in Tatiana’s arms was tiny Alexander Lightwood, his blue velvet suit crumpled, a sharp silver blade at his throat.

Utter silence descended. Cecily shuddered silently in Gabriel Lightwood’s arms, her hand clamped over her mouth, her body shaking violently with the effort not to scream. Anna stood white-faced on the dance floor, Ari’s hand on her arm, holding her back.

James, Thomas, Alastair. The Lightwoods, the Fairchilds, the Herondales. The Inquisitor and his wife. All stood staring, helpless as Cordelia was helpless. She still could not see Lucie or Jesse anywhere. Good, she thought. Better that Tatiana not lay eyes on Jesse.

Everyone was silent. The only sound in the room was Alexander’s crying, until—

“Tatiana!” cried Will, in a ringing voice. “Please! We will listen to whatever you have to say, only put down the child!”

Cordelia’s mind raced. Hadn’t Tatiana been found, bleeding and injured, in Cornwall only a few days ago? Hadn’t the Silent Brothers said she was too weak to risk moving her? And yet here she was, not just healed but looking as though she had never been hurt at all; there wasn’t so much as a scratch on her face. And the bloody dress, while torn, was her old costume; it was what she preferred to wear.

“None of you have ever listened!” Tatiana shouted, and Alexander began sobbing. “Only by taking something of yours can I even get your attention!”

“Tatiana,” said Gideon, loudly but calmly. “We are your brothers. Your friends. We will listen to you now. Whatever it is you need, we can help—”

“Help?”Tatiana shouted. “None of you have ever helped. None of you would ever help me. Here gathered together are Lightwoods, Herondales, Carstairs, none of whom have lifted a hand to help me in my direst times of trouble—”

“That’s not true!” came a voice, and Cordelia turned in surprise to see that it was James, his golden eyes flashing like fire. “You think we haven’t read your notes? That we don’t know how often help was offered to you? How often you scorned it?”

“It was always poison,” she hissed. “When my son died, I hoped that in recognition of the loss I had sustained, the terrible tragedy of his loss, my fellow Shadowhunters might support me. Might help. But if it had been up to you all, his body would have been burned in days! Before anything could be done!”

The answer to this—that death did not give back what it had taken—was so obvious that nobody even bothered to speak it.

“I sought help in the places you forbid to me,” Tatiana said. “Yes. You cast me out to look among demons for help.” She swept her gaze across the whole Enclave assembled before her. “Eventually the Prince Belial heard my pleas, and when I begged for my son’s life back, he promised it to me. But still the Nephilim resented that I might have anything—anything but failure in this life. And when you discovered my poor attempts to help my son, you threw me in the Adamant Citadel, to make the very weapons by which you keep me held down.

“And all this time!” Tatiana shot out a finger, pointing it directly at… Tessa. All eyes turned to regard her; she stood unmoving, meeting Tatiana glare for glare. “All this time these Herondales have been the allies of Belial. All along, since long before I ever knew him. Tessa Gray is his daughter,” she cried, her voice rising to a triumphant climax, “and while I am punished for merely talking to him, the Herondales prosper!”

There was a terrible silence. Even Alexander had stopped crying; he was only making breathless choking noises that were somehow worse than sobs.

Someone—Eunice Pounceby, Tessa thought—said in a quiet voice, “Mrs. Herondale, is this true?”

Will looked over with exasperation. “Are you truly asking? No, of course the Herondales have never been allied with any demon, the whole notion is—”

“Is it true,” interrupted the Inquisitor, in a voice that reminded everyone present that he was the Inquisitor, “that Tessa is the daughter of the Prince of Hell Belial?”

Will and Tessa looked at each other; neither spoke. Cordelia felt sick. Their silence was as damning as any confession could be, and here it was, witnessed by the whole Enclave.

To Cordelia’s relief, Charlotte stepped forward. “It has never been a secret,” she said, “that Tessa Gray is a warlock, and any warlock must have a demon parent. But neither has it been a secret, or a question, that she is equally a Shadowhunter. Those issues were debated, and resolved, years ago, when Tessa first came to us. We are not about to reconsider them again now just because a madwoman demands it!”

“The spawn of a Prince of Hell,” jeered Tatiana, “running the London Institute! The fox in the house of the chicks! The viper in the bosom of the Clave!”

Tessa turned away, her hands over her face.

“This is ridiculous.” Gideon spoke up. “Tessa is a warlock. She is no more allied with her demon parent than any other warlock. Most warlocks never know, and do not want to know, what demon is responsible for their birth. Those who do know despise that demon.”

Tatiana laughed. “Fools. The Angel Raziel would turn his face in shame.”

“He would turn his face in shame,” snapped James, “if he saw you. Look at you. A knife to the throat of a baby, and you dare to throw accusations at my mother—my mother, who has only ever been good and kind to everyone she has ever known?” He whirled on the assembled Shadowhunters. “How many of you has she helped? Lent you money, brought medicine when you were sick, listened to your troubles? And you doubt her now?”

“But,” said Eunice Pounceby, her eyes troubled, “if she’s known all these years that her father was a Prince of Hell, and not said it—then she’s lied to us.”

“She hasn’t known all these years!” It was Lucie. Cordelia felt a wave of relief at the sight of her. Lucie was alone—Jesse was nowhere in sight. “She only just found out! She didn’t know what to say—”

“More lies from those who have deceived you!” Tatiana retorted. “Ask yourself this! If the Herondales are so innocent, why would they have kept this lineage a secret from all of you? From the whole Clave? If they truly had no relationship with Belial, why would they have feared to speak of him? Only to hide behind closed doors, chortling with Belial and taking orders from him. And the Lightwoods and the Fairchilds are no better,” Tatiana went on, apparently relishing her captive audience. “Of course they’ve known the truth all this time. How could they not? And they have hidden the secret, protected the Herondales—lest they be tainted and their careers and influence harmed by the knowledge of the infernal spawn they have put in charge of all of you. The warlock shape-shifter and her children—who have their own powers, you know! Oh yes! The children too have inherited dark powers from their grandfather. And they roam free, while my own daughter rots in the Silent City, imprisoned though she has done nothing wrong—”

“Nothing wrong?” It was James, to Cordelia’s surprise; there were scarlet spots burning on his cheeks, a deadly intensity to his voice. “Nothing wrong? You know better than that, you monstrous, vicious—”

Tatiana screamed. It was a wordless noise, a long terrible howl, as if perhaps some part of her realized that the person speaking to her had more reason than anyone else alive to know what she truly was. She screamed—

And Piers Wentworth rushed toward Tatiana. “No!” Will shouted, but it was too late, Piers was blustering forward, flinging himself up onto the stage; he reached for Tatiana, whose mouth was open like a terrible black hole, his fingers were inches from Alexander—

Cordelia felt a rush of something cold go through the room. Behind Tatiana, the ballroom windows swung open, dangling on their hinges; Piers fell to his knees, shouting in rage, his hands closing on empty air.

Tatiana had vanished, and Alexander with her.

---

Lucie saw it as if it were happening in slow motion: that idiot Wentworth lunging at Tatiana. The explosion of glass as a window blew outward. The terrible sound made by Cecily as Tatiana vanished with Alexander. Anna pushing through the crowd, racing to her mother. The motionless Enclave jerking into movement again.

And Jesse—Jesse had come in from the balcony, where Lucie had pleaded with him, cajoled and demanded that he stay out of the ballroom. If Tatiana caught sight of him, she’d said, she might do anything; she might harm Alexander. Reluctantly, he’d agreed to remain outside, but he had clearly seen everything that had happened. He was nightmare-pale, his hand cold where it encircled Lucie’s.

“I thought she was in Cornwall,” he said. “She was meant to be imprisoned. She was meant to be kept away.”

“It wasn’t her,” Lucie whispered. She did not know why she felt it so strongly, only that she did. “It was never her in Cornwall. It was a distraction. She knew about the party. She planned this. She and Belial planned this.”

“To kidnap your cousin?” Jesse asked.

“To tell everyone,” Lucie said. She felt numb. It had finally happened: everyone in the Enclave knew the truth about her family. About Belial. “About us.”

She had half expected that the moment Tatiana vanished, the Enclave would turn on her and her family. But Tatiana had made a tactical error: in taking Alexander with her, she had delayed even the Inquisitor’s interest in anything other than tracking her down and getting the child away from her. It was as if a silent agreement had been reached between them all: the issue of Belial would have to wait. Rescuing Alexander came first.

The adults began to move in a sort of wave. They descended on the weapons tree and began to pull it apart, everyone seizing up a blade—Eugenia claimed a three-pointed fuscina, while Piers took a longsword, Sophie seized a crossbow, and Charles a brutal-looking war hammer. They began to pour out of the ballroom, through the doors, some even through the broken window, into the streets outside, spreading out to search for Tatiana.

Before James and Lucie could even start toward the weapons tree, Will stepped in front of them. He held a curved blade in one hand. “Go upstairs,” he said. He was pale, his jaw set. “Both of you. Take your friends and go upstairs.”

“But we want to help,” Lucie said. “We want to go with you—and Anna is old enough, and Thomas—”

Will shook his head. “They may be old enough,” he said. “But Cecily has just had one of her children kidnapped. She cannot also be panicking over her daughter. Anna should stay with you. Thomas, as well.” He looked around. “Where is Christopher?”

“He doesn’t like parties. He told Anna not to expect him because he ‘had science to do’; I imagine he’s in Henry’s lab,” said Lucie. “But, Father, please—”

It was clear there was no begging, no wheedling, that would change his mind. “No,” he said. “I have too much to think about already, Lucie. Your mother’s with Cecily, trying to hold her together. I know you want to help. I would want to do the same, in your place. But I need you to stay here, stay safe, or you and your mother will be all I can think about. Not Tatiana. Not getting Alexander back.”

“How did she get here?” James said. “Tatiana. I thought she was in the Cornwall Sanctuary.”

“We’ll discuss that later,” said Will. There were dark lines at the sides of his mouth. “Go upstairs. Stay there. Do you understand me?”

“We understand,” James said calmly. “We’ll take care of the situation.”

And he did. Lucie saw why the Merry Thieves had always called him the leader of their group. With a calm that brooked no argument, he gathered them all—Alastair and Cordelia, Anna and Ari and Matthew, Thomas and Jesse—and even though each one of them objected, herded them out of the (now nearly empty) ballroom and up the stairs. They had reached the second floor when Anna began to protest.

“James,” she said, her voice a harsh rasp. “I ought to be with my mother—”

“I understand,” James said. “And if you choose to be there, you should be. But I thought you might want the chance to go after Alexander.”

Anna sucked in a breath. “James? What do you mean?”

James took a left off the landing and began to lead them down the hall; Lucie could hear the others muttering in puzzlement, but she was beginning to have an inkling of where her brother was taking them. James said, “Jesse, tell them what you told me.”

“I think I know where my mother will have taken the child,” said Jesse.

“Alexander,” Anna said, a savage edge to her voice. “His name is Alexander.”

“Anna,” said Ari gently. “Jesse is trying to help.”

“Then why not tell everyone?” Thomas asked Jesse. He did not sound hostile, only puzzled. “Why not tell Will, let him spread the word that you know what your mother would have done?”

“Because nobody knows who Jesse really is,” said Alastair as James paused in front of a large iron door. “They think he’s Jeremy Blackthorn.”

“Indeed,” said Matthew. “If Will claims to have knowledge gained from Tatiana’s son, it will blow up the whole enterprise.”

“It’s not only that,” Jesse said quickly. “I would sacrifice my identity happily. But I could be wrong. It’s a guess, a feeling, not a surety. I cannot send everyone in the Enclave off after a belief I have—what if they all descend on one location, but it’s the wrong one? Then who would be looking for Alexander elsewhere?”

He’s right,Lucie wanted to say, but that would be seen as mere partisanship. Everyone knew how she felt about Jesse.

It was Cordelia who spoke.

“Jesse is right,” she said. “But James—you did swear to your father that we’d stay here, didn’t you?”

James’s face was set like iron. “I’ll have to beg his forgiveness later,” he said, and swung the doors open. Beyond it was the weapons room. It had only grown since Will had taken over the Institute, and now spread over two chambers of axes and longswords, hammers and quoits and shuriken that gleamed like stars, runed bows and arrows, whips and maces and polearms. There was armor: gear and chain mail, gauntlets and greaves. On the wide table in the center of the room, seraph blades were lined up like rows of icicles, ready to be named and used.

“Everyone who wants to come—and there is no shame in remaining here—arm yourselves,” James said. “Your preferred weapon might not be available,” he added, looking at Thomas, “but we have no time to gather those. Take something you think you’ll be able to use, and whatever gear you need. Do it quickly. We have little time to lose.”

---

“So you think that she would go to Bedford Square?” Anna said, as they set off through the darkened streets. James had brought them out of the Institute through a back way and looped around the narrow streets carefully so as to minimize the chance of running into an Enclave patrol. They could not afford to be immediately sent back. “To my parents’ house?”

The note of fear in her voice made Ari’s heart ache. Not that Anna would show her fear. She usually lounged like a purring cat, but she was stalking along the streets now like a tiger in the Odisha forests, elegant and deadly.

“Yes,” said Jesse. He had armed himself with the Blackthorn sword. It was strapped to his back in a tooled leather sheath and made him look as if he had been a practicing Shadowhunter for years, rather than days. “I can’t be absolutely certain, but it is my instinct, after years of knowing her, of listening to her.”

“How can you not know—” Anna began, but Ari caught her hand and squeezed it.

“He is being honest, Anna,” she said. “That is better than false hope.”

But Anna did not squeeze back. Ari could not blame her; she could only imagine the terror that was in Anna now, the terror that she was only barely holding back. She wished she could take some of it into her own heart, that she could bear that fear for Anna, share it with her that the burden might be lessened, even a little bit.

---

“But why?” said Thomas. He shifted his shoulders; the gear jacket he wore was too small, but there had not been one in the weapons room to fit him. “Why Uncle Gabriel’s house? Wouldn’t she expect to be caught there?”

“Not before—” Jesse broke off, but Thomas could guess at what he had almost said. Not before she kills Alexander. “Not immediately,” Jesse said. “I doubt anyone is going to look there first, other than us.”

They were on High Holborn; it was quiet at this hour, though no street in London was ever entirely deserted, no matter how late it became. At night, the damp patches on the pavement froze, and their boots crunched on ice as they walked. Hansom cabs rolled by, spraying them with filthy gutter-ice; they tried to stay well back from the curbs, since they were invisible to drivers.

Jesse said, “My mother will want to inflict the most hurt possible. She’ll want her revenge symbolic and visible.”

“So she’s going to bring Alexander to his own house?” Lucie said.

“Everything that happened to me when I was a child,” said Jesse, “happened in my own house. That was where my mother gave me to Belial. Where the rune ceremony almost killed me. She spoke often to me of how she had been violated in her own home, my father and grandfather killed on the grounds of the house she grew up in. It will seem, to her, to have a certain awful kind of balance.”

Thomas’s grip on the Zweih?nder he held had grown damp. He felt sick to his stomach. I am so sorry, he wanted to say. I am sorry for anything my family, or any of our families, may have done to cause this.

But he did not say it; nearly all of them there came from families that Tatiana believed had authored her misery, and while he could assume guilt on his own part, he could not assume it on theirs. He knew, logically, that James—walking ahead of them all, bareheaded, determined—could not be blamed for this, nor Anna, nor Matthew or Cordelia or—

“It is not your fault,” said Alastair. He was walking beside Thomas; Thomas wondered how long he had been there. Alastair had not bothered to change into gear, though he wore gauntlets on his hands, and his favorite spears were secured inside his coat. “None of this is your fault. Benedict Lightwood brought down vileness upon his own family, and Tatiana could not accept either his culpability or her own.”

“You sound very wise,” Thomas said. For a moment, it was as if he and Alastair were alone on the street, surrounded by the icy sheen of London in winter, the cold itself a sort of protective circle around the two of them.

“Guilt is one of the most sickening feelings there is,” Alastair said. “Most people will do anything to avoid feeling it. I know I—” He took a deep breath. “One can either refuse to accept it, push it away and blame others, or one can take responsibility. One can bear the unbearable weight.”

He sounded exhausted.

“I have always wanted to bear it with you,” said Thomas quietly.

“Yes,” Alastair said. His eyes were bright with cold. “Raziel knows, perhaps that is the reason I have not become like Tatiana myself. You keep me human, Tom.”

---

“Matthew,” James said, softly. “Math. Come here.”

They were nearing the Lightwoods’ house, passing darkened mundane homes whose doors were brightened with wreaths of holly and yew. James could see Bedford Square up ahead; most of the houses had curtains pulled across the windows, and the small park in the center, its winter greenery surrounded by an iron fence, was dark and unlit.

Matthew had been walking on his own, silent. He had shucked off his brocade coat and put on a gear jacket and leather fighting gloves. A half-dozen chalikars were looped over his forearm like bracelets, gleaming in the icy moonlight.

Still. As they had all prepared in the weapons room, James had watched his parabatai. Had watched as he stumbled against the table, holding himself there by gripping its edge, breathing hard as if he were trying not to be sick or to faint.

And he had watched Matthew as they left the Institute. He had kept himself a little away from the group, even from Lucie and Thomas. James could not help but feel that this was because he did not want anyone to see that he was walking too carefully, every step deliberate to the point of exaggeration.

Matthew drew close to him. And James knew—knew from his own observations, and also simply from the feeling in his chest. It was as if a tiny barometer had been inserted there during their parabatai ceremony, one that measured Matthew’s state of being.

“James,” Matthew said, a little warily.

“You’re drunk,” James said. He said it without accusation or blame; Matthew started to protest, but James only shook his head. “I am not going to be angry at you, or blame you, Matthew.”

“You could if you wanted,” Matthew said bitterly. “You thought I’d have trouble with the party, and I waved it away.”

James did not, could not, say what he was thinking. I did not know what would happen with Cordelia. I know you were sober when you spoke to her. But if she had said to me what she said to you, and I had afterward found myself thrust into a party surrounded by alcoholic merriment, I doubt I could have held back either.

“If I’d known I’d have to fight,” Matthew said, “I would never—”

“I know. Math, it’s not a question of being perfect. What you are trying to do is incredibly difficult. You may falter at times. But I do not believe a moment of weakness is failure. Not as long as you keep trying. In the meantime—let me help you.”

Matthew exhaled a soft white cloud. “What do you mean?”

“We may be about to go into battle together,” James said. He showed Matthew his right hand, in which he held his stele. “I am your parabatai; it is my duty to protect you, and yours to protect me. Now give me your hand. While we’re walking—I don’t want to stop and have the others staring.”

Matthew made a choked noise and pulled the glove off his left hand. He thrust the hand at James, who slashed an iratze across Matthew’s palm, followed by two Energy runes. He would not normally give Matthew, or anyone, more than one, but they would act as knives, cutting through any fog in Matthew’s brain.

Matthew swore under his breath, but kept his hand steady. When James was done, he wrung it out as if it had been scalded by hot water. He was breathing hard. “I feel like I might be sick,” he said.

“That’s what city pavement is for,” said James unrepentantly, putting the stele back in his pocket. “And you’re already steadier on your feet.”

“I really do not know why people say you are the nicer one of the two of us,” said Matthew. “It is clearly untrue.”

Under other circumstances, James would have smiled. He almost smiled now, despite everything, at hearing Matthew sound like himself. “No one says that. What they say is that I am the handsomer one.”

“That,” said Matthew, “is also clearly untrue.”

“And the better dancer.”

“James, this terrible habit of lying seems to have come on you suddenly. I am concerned, very concerned—”

Behind them, Anna called out. James whirled to see her standing with her hand at her chest; her Lightwood pendant was pulsing in flashes of bright red, like intermittent fire.

It could mean only one thing. Demons.